"The Progress Party" was registered on the very same day I was placed under house arrest.
The music didn’t play for long. It looks like the Kremlin riffraff, after weighing the pros and cons of this showy liberalization and the potential electoral risks, and after running its polling, decided that minimizing the threat at the elections mattered more. Some people noticed strange “leaks” in the media yesterday: The Justice Ministry threatens to revoke registration of Navalny’s party. The Russian Ministry of Justice may revoke the registration of the Progress Party, which presents itself as a party of supporters of the well-known opposition figure Alexei Navalny. According to the ministry, the organization submitted documents for the registration of its regional branches that do not comply with the law. If this mistake prevents it from registering at least 43 regional branches by the end of August, the party will lose its registration. And indeed, our "Progress Party" has been denied registration in a number of regions. It happened as if on command—or rather, obviously, on command—all at once. Even in places where the Justice Ministry had said verbally that registration had already gone through, and that the documents were expected from the Federal Tax Service and would soon be handed over, they refused to issue them at the last moment. And our party law is set up so that if the Justice Ministry has not registered 43 regional branches, the party loses its registration. The reason is the same everywhere: the Justice Ministry has stopped recognizing Vladimir Ashurkov , the authorized representative of the "Progress Party", as an “authorized representative.”
They’re just bluntly saying, "he has no authority to certify the lists," so we won’t accept them, which means there is no regional branch. In other words, nobody cares that here it is—the regional branch, and here are its members. They simply no longer recognize Ashurkov’s signature. Arguing with this is absurd—frankly, it’s insane. The party congress resolution concerning Ashurkov, submitted as part of the registration package for the party’s regional branches, states that he is authorized to register the party—Ashurkov was elected by the congress as the authorized representative without any restrictions regarding the registration of the party or its regional branches. This document (the resolution) is not a power of attorney; it is confirmation that the special legal status of “authorized representative” was duly conferred by the congress in accordance with the law, and that he has the right to sign any party documents, including applications for the registration of regional branches. Article 18 of the law on political parties states that the party’s authorized representative submits a signed application for the registration of regional branches, without any need for additional supporting documents. The party submitted a full set of documents in 49 regions. As a matter of fact, when the "Progress Party" was registered at the federal level, Ashurkov’s signature worked just fine and everyone recognized his authority. There were no complaints. Then they changed their minds.
The reasons here are obvious, of course. The crooks are only comfortable with a political system in which the unpopularity of "United Russia" is offset by the unpopularity, passivity, and compliance of the appointed “legal opposition.” This “legal opposition” does what it is told, runs in elections where it is allowed to, and takes the place it is assigned. A new, genuine opposition party—and at the moment only the "Progress Party" can become that—changes this balance. That was demonstrated perfectly in the mayoral election, where our team won three times more votes than the entire “legal opposition” combined. The tactical goal of all these illegal “refusals” is to force the Progress Party to incur additional costs, to complicate and slow down registration, and to make sure that under no circumstances can it take part in the 2014 Single Voting Day elections (Russia’s nationwide election day). After that, we can expect the party’s registration to be revoked on the grounds that it “failed on its own” to complete registration of its regional branches within the six-month period required by law. Interestingly, even the hellish amendments under which candidates running in elections must collect an unthinkable and impossible number of signatures are not enough for the Kremlin riffraff. To be on the safe side, they also need to strip us of registration. We are taking this calmly. We consider the inhabitants of the Kremlin to be thieves and traitors to the country, but not fools. This is a fairly obvious move to protect themselves. Why would they register a party that could beat them in an election? As we grow stronger and pose more of a threat, they press harder against us. Of course, we will pursue every formal legal step to the very end. But as I have said many times, “a party is not a piece of paper from the Justice Ministry; it is people united by a common goal.” The "Progress Party" will continue to exist no matter what. We have enough ways to carry on the political struggle against the regime of thieves and occupiers. We have no doubt about our victory. Mirror of this post: http://navalny.us/921169.html During Alexei Navalny’s house arrest, his blog is being run by Yulia Navalnaya and ACF staff.